


Hardware and Software

by Snickfic



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Modification, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Femslash, Injury, On the Run, Pre-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Rough Kissing, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-24 08:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19720024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: Gamora was weak at first. Confused. That’s what happened when you got a neural implant, in Nebula’s experience, which of course Gamora had none of, because this had never happened to her before.





	Hardware and Software

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, recip!

Gamora was weak at first. Confused. That’s what happened when you got a neural implant, in Nebula’s experience, which of course Gamora had none of, because this had never happened to her before. “Where are we?” she asked warily. She remembered enough to be wary, at least.

Nebula had popped open the little ship’s thruster control panel. She touched another node with her sparker. Nothing happened. “On Selfast,” Nebula said. It was a dump of a planet scattered with ruins older than the ship’s minimal navpedia had been able to tell the date of. Some of them loomed over her now, great pillars hundreds of meters high, and the ground beneath her feet was dressed stone. There was no civilization here, no port. She’d never heard of the place until a few hours ago.

Gamora was quiet a while. She didn’t say _Where is that,_ because admitting ignorance was weakness, and Gamora remembered enough to be afraid of that, too. “Why?” she said finally.

Nebula turned. Gamora sat in the ship’s lee, by the fire. Half her hair was gone. The titanium plate in her skull shone orange in the fire’s glow. She looked younger than she had four days ago, when she’d met Nebula across the mat, again. She looked fragile.

Nebula wanted to tear the plate from her skull and the whole neural apparatus beneath. She wanted to watch Gamora twitch and die under her hands. She wanted—

“Training,” Nebula said shortly, and turned back to the control panel. Let Gamora make of that what she would.

\--

Gamora was steadier on the second day. She could walk around camp without stumbling. She spent a long time inside the ship, probably looking for clues to the questions she refused to ask aloud.

Nebula wasn’t looking forward to Gamora’s conclusions, but when she finally went looking, she found Gamora passed out on the grated floor, lying on a shock blanket she must have dug out of the emergency supplies. She was on her side, the titanium plate facing up. The skin at its boundaries were puckered, discolored, painful-looking.

Nebula kicked Gamora’s ankle, and Gamora startled awake. She should have had a knife to Nebula’s throat in half a second; instead she sat up slowly. Her face was drawn. Nebula could see the fear. “What is it?” Gamora said.

“We have training.”

Gamora pushed shakily to her feet. “Why did Father give _you_ our itinerary?”

“Because I won,” Nebula said, and stalked out of the ship.

She took a charred stick from the fire and marked out a rough circle on the stone floor. Gamora watched silently, holding her arms. If she’d stood up straight maybe Nebula would have called it off, found some excuse. Instead she took position on the far side of the ring and faced Gamora. Gamora stepped into the ring, still unsteady, her mouth set grimly in determination—or pain.

There was fight in her still, but no strength. She fell twice; twice Nebula held herself back just long enough for Gamora to get to her feet. “Fight, damn you,” Nebula said.

“I am.” Gamora’s voice was too weak for fury. 

Nebula had fury to spare. She and Gamora circled, Gamora barely making a pretense of actual sparring. Her eyes shone wetly through her glare.

Thanos had taken Nebula’s tear ducts long ago. 

Nebula didn’t bother with feints or technique this time. She punched Gamora in the jaw; when Gamora crumpled, Nebula straddled her. “You’re weak,” she told Gamora. She gripped Gamora’s wrists and slammed them to the earth. “Why are you so weak? Get up! Do something!”

“What do you want me to do?” Gamora screamed in Nebula’s face. Her breath was hot; her chest heaved between Nebula’s thighs. Her eyes were bright and furious and terrified. Her arm twitched in Nebula’s grip, and that’s when Nebula kissed her. Gamora stilled, and Nebula kissed her harder, mouth pressed to mouth, shoving Gamora’s lips against her teeth. 

Nebula’s blood was still hot, not with fury but with this, this thing she was doing that burned through her like a gasoline fire. She gripped Gamora’s wrists tighter until she felt the grind of bone against bone. Then, finally, Gamora responded. She arched her back and moaned into Nebula’s mouth, and she moved against Nebula’s lips.

Nebula had done this with other siblings, but not Gamora, who won every fight, whose every limb and organ was her own, who looked at Nebula with such scorn. Never Gamora.

Gamora’s breath hitched. It took Nebula a moment to realize it was because of pain. She pushed up onto her hands and looked Gamora over. Thick green blood oozed from the edge of Gamora’s skull plate, near her ear. She was supposed to have stayed in the infirmary a week while the implant finished taking root. Even Nebula had always gotten a week.

Nebula sat up. Gamora stared at her, eyes wet again. “Weak,” Nebula spat, and went to get disinfectant and bandages.

\--

Gamora slept near the fire this time. Nebula kept on messing with the control panel nodes until finally one rear thruster rumbled to life. Nebula tried the same trick on the next node, and now both thrusters were humming. Something eased in Nebula’s chest—not fear, because she’d gotten that torn out of her several augmentations ago. But something. She slapped the switch off. No point in wasting fuel. They didn’t have that much to begin with.

“This isn’t training, is it,” Gamora said from behind her. 

She was sitting up. Her skin had a gray cast to it, but her eyes were clearer than they’d been in days, since—

“No,” Nebula said. “It isn’t.”

“We’re running away.”

“ _You_ aren’t doing anything.” Gamora had barely roused in that first day out from Sanctuary. She might not have roused yet if the little space skimmer’s thruster core hadn’t fizzled out on them, forcing a landing on this miserable, dead planet. The skimmer had gouged a trough ten meters long in the crumbling stone; of course Gamora had woken up.

“You kidnapped me, and now we’re running away. Why?”

She’d looked dead on the operating table. Nebula had plenty of experience with death, and Gamora had looked it—gray-skinned, eyes closed, breath so faint she might not have been breathing at all. The ether-screen had showed the implant progress in rewiring her brain. The skull plate had gleamed.

 _Because I won_ , Nebula wanted to say, but that didn’t make any sense. Just because she finally won a bout, because it was Gamora’s turn to be cut open and improved—that was no reason. She didn’t have any words for why she’d stolen aboard the skimmer, Gamora limp in her arms and a bare few days’ rations at her back. 

For an answer, she gestured to Gamora’s head. Gamora traced the edge of the plate and winced. “You shouldn’t touch it,” Nebula said, never mind she’d come this close to punching it in a few hours ago. 

She stood up and and rummaged in her pack for the protein wafers. She sat down with one for herself and offered the package to Gamora. They ate in silence while the fire flickered. Clouds gathered overhead, and the sky began to turn red. That meant a storm, presumably; Nebula had gotten the thrusters working again just in time. 

Gamora shifted her weight. Nebula watched as she shuffled nearer, occasionally wincing in pain—even if the implant was properly rooted, finally, it’d mean a hell of a headache for a long time yet. Eventually she brushed her shoulder against Nebula’s, and then, when Nebula didn’t move, Gamora ducked nearer until she could brush her lips against Nebula’s mouth.

It was Nebula’s breath hitching this time as Gamora drew her in, a hand to her jaw. Gamora didn’t kiss like she meant to bruise. She didn’t kiss like she knew _what_ she meant. She startled when Nebula kissed her back—gently, this time, kind of, the memory of Gamora’s bleeding wound still fresh. Gamora’s mouth was soft. She smelled of fire smoke and disinfectant.

Gamora dropped her hand and retreated, shifting to look at the fire. “Where will we go?”

She never asked Nebula anything like that. Gamora had always _known_. She’d always been so fucking certain.

“I don’t know,” Nebula said. “Somewhere else.”

Gamora nodded like that was an answer. Overhead, the storm clouds kept on rolling in.

[end]


End file.
